What do you need to know about being a wedding planner? What do wedding planners live on? What should an assistant in a wedding agency do?

A wedding is perhaps the most important event in a person's life. However, preparation for this event sometimes crosses out all the joy from the future celebration.

• Where can I find a photographer and presenter?
• How to issue invitations?
• How to entertain and how to feed guests?
• Where to buy a dress and order a cortege?
• What flowers to choose?

The list of such questions is endless. It was because of the huge list of problems and questions that such a profession as a wedding planner appeared. This person will become the closest friend for the bride and groom during the preparation and conduct of the wedding.

Such a specialist will take care of all the issues, discuss the details of the future wedding and prepare everything at the highest level in a matter of days. In the meantime, the groom will be able to watch football in peace, and the bride will lovingly write out the name of her husband in a notebook (figuratively speaking).

How to become a wedding planner?

The wedding planner is a full-fledged profession, which, although difficult to master, is possible. It seems to many that becoming an organizer is quite simple - just a few read articles will suffice. However, it is not.

To begin with, a person will need innate sociability, a sharp mind, creativity, as well as the ability to find a solution to any problem in the shortest possible time.

Wedding planner courses

If a person has decided that he can organize weddings, then he will need to complete preparatory courses - it is not difficult to find them.

After several years of successful work, almost every wedding agency opens its own courses for organizers, photographers, presenters, and so on.

A big plus is that real professionals act as lecturers - specialists who will pass on to attentive students not only knowledge, but also experience.

At the end of the course, the agency invites the most capable students to a permanent position. After the completion of the preparation, a very important stage follows - the practice of holding wedding events.

Wedding planner - training

Wedding organizers are trained in the form of lectures and trainings. Most often, groups of up to 10 people gather, it is in this number that each participant will feel part of the discussion, and this is important.

The lecturers are professional organizers who have decided to pass on their experience to the younger generation.

The first events of the organizer

Practice in organizing weddings is of great importance, and is a problem of first importance for a beginner. In the "practical exercises" it is worth noting a few important points:

• First, you should never chase the price. In the early stages, you need to fill out your portfolio, and this will be quite difficult to do. Even if they offer to organize a wedding for pennies, an inexperienced organizer should not refuse.
• It is worth contacting friends - maybe they just need an organizer? Any person will be happy to take on this position a friend or at least a good friend. For the newlyweds, this option will be very comfortable, and for the organizer himself it will be a new experience.
• You need to do your work with high quality, with a soul, in no case should you skimp! After all, it is to friends and acquaintances that people turn in search of an organizer for a wedding, and only then they open the Internet. It directly depends on how well a person does his work, whether former clients want to recommend him to their friends.
• Be sure to save photos and videos from previous events - this will be a great addition to your portfolio.
• A big plus will be the development of additional skills. If the organizer knows how to take pictures, make high-quality videos, choose flowers or interest the public at a glance, then in addition to organizing activities, it is worth taking on the services of a photographer, florist and presenter, respectively.

Responsibilities of a wedding planner

The wedding organizer is obliged to help young people in solving many issues:

• Advise on all issues related to the preparation;
• Helping you plan your wedding planning.
• He will find an approach to any couple - he will select a solution that will suit both the groom and the bride;
• It will remind you of all the important little things that only at first glance seem insignificant, but if they are absent, they can greatly spoil the impressions of the wedding;
• It will help to select specialists for the wedding - a competent organizer should be personally acquainted with photographers, designers, stylists and presenters who can provide the wedding with everything necessary, keeping within the budget of the newlyweds. Once selected, he will personally discuss with them the time and place of the event.;
• He will help you choose the best wedding salons, a good cafe, a restaurant, advise on how to arrange a cortege and what cars should be ordered;
• He will make a list of prices, while he will be able to take into account even the smallest details that can hit the wallet at a crucial moment. Sometimes it will even help to save money - so much so that the cost of hiring the organizer himself will pay off with his head;
• It will help to choose a room for marriage registration, or solve the issue of on-site registration;
• Think over the text of invitations, seat guests in their places;
• Most importantly, at the wedding itself, he will take over the management of the work of all specialists, organize and seat the guests, and resolve any force majeure.

A competent organizer should provide young people with an unforgettable holiday, and not distract them to solve various problems.

Wedding planners - prices

The cost of hiring a wedding organizer depends on many factors - the budget of the wedding, the professionalism of the organizer, the amount of work.

has been known on the market for over 12 years. How they got into the wedding business, how they work and what is most important for them in life - Elena Shirshova and Evgeny Grigoriev told in a special interview with Wedding magazine editor-in-chief Lika Dlugach.

Lika: What were you doing before the events? What was the impetus for you to suddenly pick up and go there?

Elena Shirshova: At first we were engaged in club life. It was the beginning of the 2000s: 1999, 2000 and up to 2005. Zhenya and I met there. It was the Zapasnik art club, aka Art Garbage, a very trendy place. It was located on the territory of the Union of Artists, in the premises of the old stables. We decorated it very successfully, and it turned out to be a very nice club, where architects and artists mostly went.

Evgeny Grigoriev: At some point, we realized that we had outgrown the Reserve, we had exhausted ourselves. And we went practically nowhere.

L: How did you sit down and figure out what you would do next?

E.Sh.: In the last year of work at Zapasnik, we became participants in the creation of a wedding for an oligarch. For us, it was a colossal experience, a most difficult undertaking, even by today's standards - we built 9 sites in Tsaritsyno, and it was very difficult.

E.G. : The decorator was theatrical designer Dima Muchnik, filmed by Vlad Loktev.

E.Sh.: When we did that wedding, we realized that we like it.

E.G. : We called one company with which we had previously worked and offered our services literally for free in order to earn a reputation on this new event market for us.

E.Sh.: An interesting, very complex image event for the company. There was Bashmet, Renata Litvinova. We were appraised, and then we were given to do all the activities for several years in a row. They developed us very much, because every time we had to jump above our heads in order to be better than everyone else in the market in general. We were among the very first to use mapping and introduce new technologies. In parallel, we worked with Norilsk Nickel, and with Metalloinvest, and with MTS, so, of course, we developed very quickly.

L: Were weddings secondary?

E.Sh.: We did weddings in parallel, because all the owners of the companies got married, and they naturally turned to us, because then there were no wedding agencies.

L: Now in the opposite direction. You do weddings, then it hits christenings, anniversaries, anniversaries.

E.Sh.: And events for companies.

L: I really love your name because it's about people.

E.G. : The task was to have the word wedding. We decided that everyone needs a wedding. We thought about it for a long time, probably a year or two. And somehow "Wedding People" was born. I remember we made a website, and the first customer called from it. So it was new and amazing!

L: What happened next?

E.Sh.: Then there was Preston Bailey. Our hands itched to do something big. We saw how people work abroad, how open they are. Preston says: ask questions, I'll tell you everything as it is, I'll tell you in spirit, I'll help. He then told me a very valuable thing, which later helped me. I always do a lot of things. Then I was engaged in parallel with the women's club, the organization of the club of museum lovers in the Pushkin Museum, and something else. I told him about it. He says: no, don't do that, you make sure that your agency is the best in Russia, this is your goal, forget everything else, just do this. I then thought: probably, yes, I will not be scattered, I will be engaged in this narrow direction. This is an American theme: you have to do one thing, but do it better than anyone else.

Preston Bailey is one of the best decorators in the world.

L:Who else influenced you?

E.Sh.: Probably Dubai, DesignLab Experience. They are all inspired.

L: I'm not necessarily asking about people now. About anything: people, events, works of art, travel - everything.

E.G. : The most important thing in the last year or two, maybe three, is when Wedding magazine connected us on the first trip with agencies, and we all began to communicate. It is clear that we are not going to discuss corporate news every Friday. But in general, this is an influence, because you communicate with people, talk with like-minded people in the same language. The market has ceased to be a business of singles.

L. What is a wedding for you?

E.Sh.: This is a responsibility to two people and all those invited. You give them the opportunity to feel that happiness and a sense of the moment that will warm them all their lives later, you give them memories that will go into the archive and will replenish the pedigrees that we lost in our time. The process of creating a wedding dinner, wedding, ceremony - it requires a lot of human costs: emotional, psychological, temporary, and physical.

E.G. A: It's actually adrenaline. It doesn't always happen that way, to be honest. There are projects - challenges for yourself.

L:Is it always a challenge?

E.G. : Almost always. You always want to jump over something previous, you want to prove something to yourself, to do something new.

L: To achieve something new, you need new people. How often do you experiment with new decorators leading?

E.Sh.: There is a recent example. A couple who asked for their host, whom they know, who hosted the girl's 18th birthday, and they saw him at some other event, and they really liked him. He is from Voronezh, although there will be only Muscovites at the wedding, invited guests of very high status, friends of the parents. Of course, as always, I doubted. I say: I need a meeting, I just can’t take a pig in a poke. He came specially, parents came, a couple. I immediately laid out all the cards for him, that we rarely do this, that I have a lot of questions for him. Within an hour he completely disarmed me. He said exactly what I expect from the hosts, what they need to do at the evening. We absolutely agreed with him. He turned out to be a talented leader. By the way, the winner of the Wedding Awards Chernozemye, Evgeny Denisov.

E.G. : With decorators so far (pah-pah-pah) somehow develops. Still, there are fewer nuances, because we saw them somewhere. It's easier with photographers too.

E.Sh.: With photographers - yes, you already see their work, you can navigate. Still, it's more visual, it's always more difficult with the presenters.

L.Tell us about an American wedding.

E.Sh.: It was such an unusual story for us! From the very beginning, 90 Americans from more than 20 countries and only 12 Russians came to welcome. These are people who know how to have fun right away, to turn on. Their mood did not depend on the pretentiousness of the site, nor on the officialdom that is characteristic of weddings at the beginning of the evening. No! As if they were used to weddings in this format, although for them it was completely new.

E.G. : In fact, we probably broke their idea, and they broke ours a little. This story, the interpenetration of cultures before your eyes - it was so cool! First, when the presenter Alexander Belov came out, who, by the way, led the entire wedding in English, they were very surprised at his active presence ... "Who are you, why do you talk like that a lot?" The format that Sasha made is Russian, to which we are accustomed, and we consciously filled it with what is now called interactive, and earlier it was called contests (we will call it by its proper name). They went fantastic!

E.Sh.: They were ready to do anything at once. These people are over 40 years old. They jumped on chairs, they shouted “I”, they wanted to compete all the time somewhere, guess tunes, dance, sing.

E.G.: The whole hall was dancing, no one was sitting. Music sounded - that's it, the whole hall is dancing. They dance like that! Free, fun, open, ready for anything. They said: none of them had ever been to such a luxurious wedding.

L: The season is not over yet, but it is already clear that there were more weddings this season. Was there the most, perhaps, interesting thing that moved you forward, what gave you an impetus?

E.Sh.: The wedding we had on April 29 in Deauville was a challenge for us in every way. It was filled with numbers from parents, from guests, from the newlyweds themselves, from brothers, sisters, friends, we had it built as a performance with various dance and theatrical numbers.

E.G. A: Deauville, beautiful weather, warm, fine, beautiful view and so on. At weddings, people always go out to smoke, look at nature. Here, people ran out, smoked and quickly returned, because it was impossible to miss anything!

E.Sh.: There was not a second, we made the program so tightly.

E.G. : We surprised them all the time: such a number, that one, we will show it, we will do it - and all this is incredibly emotional: we cry, laugh, dance.

E.Sh.: Everyone sobbed there, everyone danced at once too. The bride stood with her fingers crossed to remember every minute. Everyone gave it their all: both friends and parents. Such touching numbers were made, recorded. For us, this was a very serious challenge - it was important for us to show their inner connection with each other, including to all guests, and to do this in a very non-trivial way. We also had complex scenery there. We had to build everything in one night. After us, now everyone is building new walls, floors, ceilings, in the best traditions of film pavilions.

L: We are always making some discoveries - in ourselves, in business. What are the most important discoveries for you this year, this season?

E.G. : Team. A project is not made by one person, it is made by a team, people. Of course, our core is the most important. When you can rely on everyone, plus, of course, contractors. Someone dropped out, someone, on the contrary, was added.

E.Sh.: Also for me - understanding the place in the industry. For some reason, this year I felt that the most important thing is your energy and your love for people and for what you do. If you don’t have energy, if you don’t have this important component, if you yourself don’t believe, if you aren’t ignited, then you won’t succeed. I appreciated that we were given this, that everything coincided, and this business turned out to be on our way, where we managed to get so happily, and it is so mutual that you get a lot of happiness in what you do.

E.G. : Lena asked me the day before yesterday: in what century would you like to live? I immediately said: in 300 years. It's interesting what will happen. And Lena said: in the present, it’s just fine.

E.Sh.: The time in which we live is meaningful and significant. I would not want to live in any other time. I would not want to live during the war, or during the revolution. I think we got it. It's all so interesting so far. You have so many opportunities that you yourself can change yourself, and the world, and everything in the world. You are like a creator and moderator of everything that is given to you. That's what I appreciated, probably, this year.

L: What you are talking about, I think, is called the prime of life. The moment when you have a lot of strength, a lot of experience, and you realize that your possibilities are almost limitless.

A wedding planner is a specialist who takes responsibility for organizing wedding celebrations from script planning to full implementation.

Wage

RUB 40,000–70,000 (worka.yandex.ru)

Place of work

Wedding organizers are most often individual entrepreneurs, the rest work in wedding salons and agencies.

Responsibilities

Preparing for a wedding is a complex and exciting process for the bride and groom. It is understood that a wedding is played once in a lifetime, and therefore everything must be held at the highest level. Often, professional wedding planners are involved in the process.

The job of a wedding planner is exciting, interesting and highly educational. The specialist advises on all issues related to the preparation, helps in scheduling, reminds you of important details.

The process begins with finding out the personal wishes of the bride and groom, as well as the budget. The organizer selects a photographer, designer, stylist, presenter, music performers, determines the venue for the offsite registration and banquet, thinks over the text of the invitation and the seating plan for the guests. Directly at the wedding, the organizer takes charge of the work of all specialists and resolves any force majeure.

Important qualities

To become a wedding organizer, you must have such qualities as: self-confidence, communication skills, analytical thinking, fantasy, tolerance, responsibility, activity, diligence, stress resistance, an elementary understanding of the characteristics of the human psyche.

Who is the wedding planner? What does he do and what are his responsibilities? What qualities should a representative of this profession have in order to succeed? Where to start your path to professional heights if you have no experience at all? If your plans include a career as an organizer of wedding events, the experts of the ND. About Weddings will tell you how to avoid mistakes at the start, where to find reliable partners, and how to become a pro.

Features of the profession

Every bride always knows exactly what her ideal wedding should be, and dreams about it. But in order for the dream to become a reality, you need to take into account a thousand and one details: from transport to the schedule of the photographer. This is the task of the wedding organizer - a person who professionally brings fantasies to life.
Theoretically, there is a difference between a wedding planner and a wedding coordinator (manager). The task of the coordinator is to coordinate the actions of all the specialists who ensure the celebration. He keeps the timing of the wedding day, discusses changes in the script with the host (for example, if one of the guests asks to give him the floor at a certain moment), controls the schedule of the feast, transfer, the beginning and end of all events.
The wedding organizer is personally responsible not only for the consistency of the celebration, but also for its quality. He recommends to the newlyweds a venue for the celebration, make-up artists, photographers and video recorders, wedding ateliers, florists and, in general, all specialists who work at the wedding. The same person solves any problems related to them and guarantees the implementation of all clauses of the contract.

Required competencies

In practice, wedding organizers (for example, in St. Petersburg) are universal magicians. They not only plan the celebration, coordinate its course, but also advise the newlyweds on all necessary issues. Their activity can hardly even be called work - rather, it is an exciting quest, often with unpredictable turns.
Being a wedding planner will be your calling if you:
you are highly self-organized and able to organize others;

• always focused on obtaining only the best result;
• learn quickly;
• confident in the "strength" of their nerves;
• you know how to negotiate;
• able to maintain a sincere smile in any situation;
• love weddings.

If you want to make a career as a wedding planner in St. Petersburg

There are many nuances in planning weddings in St. Petersburg and its suburbs, which few people know about. This knowledge only comes with experience.

• precipitation: the weather in the city is absolutely unpredictable; even if weather forecasters promise a sunny day, when holding a celebration in an open area, you should definitely provide for the opportunity to hide: tents, awnings, gazebos, umbrellas
• traffic jams: always plan the transfer of honeymooners and guests in such a way as to avoid the busiest highways; if the distances are short, you can hire a horse-drawn carriage for the spouses, in the historical center there are water trams, and it is best to get to Peterhof by meteor
• contacts: there are a lot of wedding service providers in the city on the Neva, but the level of their competence often leaves much to be desired; find, "make friends" and cooperate only with the highest quality and most reliable contractors, because any little thing can ruin the whole holiday and even disrupt the event
• terms: competently in St. Petersburg in a couple of months is impossible: to plan a modest event (a small number of guests, no entertainment program) you need to provide six months, for a large-scale celebration it will take a year. And it’s not even about the amount of work: if you want to see the best host at your wedding, use the services of the best stylist, then you need to “book” their time at least six months in advance - by calling a month before the celebration, you will be unpleasantly surprised by the refusal.

How to come to professionalism?

Wedding planners (St. Petersburg) often start their careers as an assistant wedding coordinator, host, toastmaster, even a photographer or video recorder. The main thing is to know the wedding process from the inside and understand where there are possible pitfalls.
However, you can succeed even without such experience. To get started, find good ones that wedding planners (St. Petersburg) attend. The training will expand your circle of contacts, give you an idea of ​​the essence of the profession, working algorithms that can then be applied, some practical skills, but most importantly, a positive charge necessary for further self-education.
At any wedding where you are invited, pay attention to how the celebration is organized. If possible, ask the newlyweds for the contacts of the specialists who worked with them. Mark everything that you liked, and all the moments that did not go well. Constantly ask yourself the question: how could the ceremony be improved? Write ideas in a separate notebook.

• Organize several weddings for friends or acquaintances for free - this way you will receive the necessary recommendations.
• Maintain an up-to-date portfolio database.
• Constantly monitor innovations in the wedding market: fashion trends, original solutions, and the like.

Be persistent and constantly learn - and professionalism will certainly come. And along with it - commercial success.

I have been organizing weddings for 7 years. And every time, when asked about my profession, I hear about the same answer in its various variations: “This is great”, “Oh, I always wanted to, too”, “This is a dream job”, “Yes, you have a permanent holiday”, "So much creativity and beauty in your work." Of course, I always say "Yes, yes." Can you explain in a nutshell all the subtleties and charms of any profession.

The work of a wedding organizer, and even more so if you are the owner of a wedding agency, is not an endless holiday, laughter and smiles. Our job is to provide all this to our clients, taking over the solution of numerous issues from different areas at the highest level.

A wedding planner is first and foremost a very good account manager. This is a person who knows how to set up work in such a way that
make the most of your client's time and money. What skills should this person have first of all. Knowledge of the rules of business correspondence, the ability to draw up estimates and contracts, work with documents, presentations, lists, diagrams. Constantly be in search of the best, select and sort information. Understand the basics of time management, know modern etiquette, have a taste, a sense of tact, be able to see the situation 10 steps ahead.
What else? Be the most versatile person, read a lot and get involved. Understand art, wine and cuisines of the world. Be able to count and keep in mind the five most stupid tasks at the same time. Be able to multitask, be stress-resistant and LOVE people. Be able to listen and hear.

The wedding planner has the most difficult client. Hairdresser, trainer, teacher. Most of those who work in the service industry can make a mistake. The wedding planner has no right to do so. For a wedding is the most important day in life, and repeating it, rewinding time back, if something went wrong, will not work. There is only 1 chance. Therefore, every minute of this day must be impeccable, because this is what an expert is hired for. Even if something does not go as planned, the organizer must have a solution. The electricity went out, the waiters dropped the cake, the groom's suit was torn. What
expected from the organizer? A smile is one. Serenity is two. The solution is
three.

After rereading the lines above, you may get the impression that everything in our work is clear, verified and on command. Essentially yes. This is the basis of the basics in terms of conducting a wedding as a project, when we talk about a high level of service, by the way, regardless of the budget. This is the basis of our image, and a guarantee of good recommendations from our couples.

So is there really no creativity at all in this work?
Of course have. Creativity exists in every field of activity. Creatively
you can lay out pens on your desk or sign letters. On my
view, the concept of creativity is very abstract. And even the creation of a concept, which in our agency is necessarily included in the service of creating a wedding, is also not entirely creative work. This is an understanding of architecture and modeling issues, knowledge of existing materials and structures, understanding of trends and tendencies, the concept of Ethan's Circle and how much it is - a kilobyte of light, this is the ability to feel space, keep a huge amount of information in your head and in archives, collect material from different areas - art , interior design, fashion.

In our work, we study the style, tastes, desires of each couple. To create, anticipate, guess. And create a dream.

Probably, the article will cause a lot of questions and comments, including from those who disagree. I want to note that this is just my personal opinion and this is how we treat clients at the agency.

By the way, if the words resonated within you, send your resume to [email protected]. I need a manager.